Community Owner Inspired by His College Experience
A college scholarship paid for Ron Cobb’s books and tuition for four years. Without it, he would have been unable to attend college. Years later, he decided to give back and create a scholarship program of his own.
Cobb and his wife Jeanette own Logan’s Crossing Manufactured Home Community in Dallas, Ga., about 25 miles northwest of Atlanta. About a decade ago, Cobb decided to start offering scholarships to school-age children in his community. There are many children who live in Logan’s Crossing, an all-ages community with about 400 residents. Many of them get to school from the bus stop in front of the main office, Cobb said.
Cobb approached the Paulding Education Foundation, which seeks to promote educational opportunities in Paulding County, Ga. He proposed that Logan’s Crossing create and fund a scholarship program that the foundation would administer, and the foundation agreed.
A Community Education Partnership is Born
The partnership between the foundation and the Paulding County School District is crucial to the success of the scholarship program, he said.
“The cooperation between the school board and education foundation gives them access to school records, which gives me a way to verify that children are eligible,” Cobb said. “If I had done this on my own, the school system would have been unwilling to share with me the attendance and grade records of students, and I would have had to depend on parents or students to tell me.”
Getting the Georgia scholarship program from idea to reality was not as easy as Cobb originally assumed.
“There are an awful lot of contingencies you have to deal with,” he said, but “we have most of the kinks worked out.”
To qualify for a scholarship, a student must be a resident of Logan’s Crossing for the full academic year. The recipient must go to class in Paulding County School District (or an accredited college or technical school in Georgia), and must have achieved either perfect attendance or an average grade of B or better.
Community Recognition of the Georgia Scholarships
Typically, the Cobbs dole out $1,000 to $1,500 a year in scholarship money to a handful of students. The most they’ve paid in one year is $5,000 to nine students. The local newspaper covers the scholarships every year, running pictures of the awardees. The program saw its first college degree last year, when a Logan’s Crossing student graduated from Georgia Southern University.
“I wanted to give back to the community, and it has worked out well,” Cobb said. “(Logan’s Crossing) has been recognized in ways I never anticipated.”
Logan’s Crossing Offers Scholarships for Students Who Meet the Following Requirements
Grammar school
$50 for perfect attendance for the entire school year.
Middle school
$75 for perfect attendance for the entire school year.
High school
$100 for perfect attendance for the entire school year; $100 for earning a diploma or GED, regardless of age; $250 for maintaining at least a B average for the entire school year.
College
$1,000 for each year a student is awarded a Georgia Hope Scholarship. Up to four awards per student.
Technical school
$1,000 for each year a student maintains at least a B average for the full academic year. Up to two awards per student.
Logan’s Crossing residents Cheyanna Jones, Dakota Pinson and Mobato and Mohau Mbesa were all given scholarships for the 2017-18 school year.
